The Absence of Light

I am sorry to say that this film is indeed bad. It reminds me of a c-grade porn movie with one major difference: no porn.

The story and dialogue needs a complete overhaul. Maybe then the bad acting would not have been as noticeable. At the very least, the pacing should have been picked up.

While I accept that this had a low budget and the director did a good job visually given what little resources he had, he should have spent more time on the story or better yet, get someone else to write it. Many of the action scenes were just pointless.

It was a complete waste of my time.

"The Absence of Light" is told from the point of view of an unscrupulous killer who's got a job to do and doesn't care how many people he'll have to kill. In this case, a senator wants to be re-elected and witnesses of his countless mistakes have to be removed permanently. It's the point of view which makes the movie different from the average TV crime story, doing the devil's work adds some refreshing political incorrectness. And violence. Also it's a nice touch that several veteran actors were involved: Tom Savini plays the killer's boss, modestly named Higher Power, David Hess is his equivalent on the other side, Caroline Munro just has to sit in a chair and speak a few lines, and Michael Berryman appears as an almost supernatural weirdo. On the other hand, "The Absence of Light" has quite a few problems. Taking the crime story into the science fiction area with a genetic experiment, illustrated with home-made computer effects, damages the professional look seriously. The soundtrack sounds very direct-to-video and lacks good background music. The characterization isn't interesting enough as the dialog often tends to turn in a kind of "we've got to do what we've got to do" circle. A final remark to the reviews I've read. Either personal friends of the director shout "masterpiece!" and give ten stars, or frustrated buyers cry "worst movie of all time" and click the lowest possible mark. Isn't the truth usually somewhere in the middle? Just my two cents, therefore.

I am very lucky to have been involved in this project. everyone was really nice to work with and it is a shame that someone posted a bad review on here when this director has made its audience involved with this project. He deliberately is showing the movie as it goes through many stages of development. I think that is a wonderful thing to do. This person saw the cut of this that was nowhere near finished and was told that before the film started. I think it is a horrible thing to post such negativity when you haven't even seen the finished project. very unprofessional thing to do in my opinion! Also, he says that many actors left during this film preview. Well that is true, but also false! I was there! I had to leave early because I was at the convention to sign autographs and meet fans etc...none of us could stay to watch the film, but it had nothing to do with the film itself, it had to do with what we were hired to do that weekend and obviously if you even noticed any of us leaving you weren't really paying attention to the film anyway, so how can you even review it.

I am proud of how this film is developing, Robyn Griggs

I recently had the privilege of watching this film in Cleaveland at twisted nightmare weekend Aug 5 - 7 2005. I was highly impressed with the action sequences and surprised by the number of guest appearances in the film. The visual effects were quite good, especially when I found out that the director did all of the CGI at his home. This would be the third version of the film I have seen. I have been monitoring this movie from its infancy and I can say that the final cut is nearly perfect. The cast and crew have worked a long time to create this wonderful film.

I would definitely recommend this movie to others.

I found this movie to be quite interesting. The special effects and CGI was very good for an independent film, and the story line was very interesting.

I was very impressed with the number of stars I saw in this film. The guy from Candyman was in this film, as a scientist. Sex Machine from From Dask Till Dawn was a boss of a band of assassins.

The action scenes were great. The film seemed to have a good flow and I didn't notice a lot of inconsistencies like I pick up on in major films.

Overall I thought this movie was really good. Probably the best independent film I've ever seen. I can't wait to see the directors next project.